Sentosa

Sentosa, which translates to peace and tranquility in Malay,
is a popular island resort in Singapore, visited by some five million people a
year. Attractions include a two-kilometre long sheltered beach, Fort Siloso,
two golf courses and two five-star hotels, and the Resorts World Sentosa,
featuring the new theme park Universal Studios Singapore.

Sentosa was once known as Pulau Blakang Mati which in Malay
means the "Island (pulau) of Death (mati) from Behind (blakang)".

The name Blakang Mati is rather old but may not have been
founded in the nineteenth century as generally believed. In fact, there exists
an island that was identified as Blacan Mati in Manuel Gomes de Erédia's 1604
map of Singapore. Other early references to the island of Blakang Mati include
Burne Beard Island in Wilde's 1780 MS map, Pulau Niry, Nirifa from 1690 to
1700, and the nineteenth century reference as Pulau Panjang (J.H. Moor).
However, early maps did not separate Blakang Mati from the adjacent island of
Pulau Brani, so it is uncertain to which island the sixteenth century place
names referred.

The island has gone through several name changes. Up to
1830, it was called Pulau Panjang ("long island"). In an 1828 sketch
of Singapore Island, the island is referred to as Po. Panjang. According to
Bennett (1834), the name Blakang Mati was only given to the hill on the island
by the Malay villagers on the island. The Malay name for this island is
literally translated as "dead back" or "behind the dead";
blakang means "at the back" or "behind"; mati means "dead".
It is also called the dead island or the island of the dead.

Different versions of how the island came to acquire such an
unpropitious name abound. One account attributed the ominous name to murder and
piracy in the island's past. A second claimed that the island is the material
paradise of warrior spirits buried at Pulau Brani.

A third account claims that an outbreak of disease on the
island in the late 1840s almost wiped out the original Bugis settlers on the
island. Dr Robert Little, a British coroner investigating the deaths, stumbled
upon what was called Blakang Mati Fever, purportedly a type of fever caused by
miasmastic fumes arising from decaying leaves and swampy water on the island.
This event led to a controversy in medical circles at that time as to the
causes of what was later recognised in 1898 as malaria spread by the Anopheles
mosquito. The government's malaria research station was originally located
here.

A fourth interpretation is that "dead back island"
was so-called because of the lack of fertile soil on the hills. However, since
the island creates an area of dead water behind it with no wind (hence
"still behind" - still or stopped being an alternative translation of
mati) it may be as simple as this — less romantic perhaps, but believable from
a nautical viewpoint.

In 1827, Captain Edward Lake of the Bengal Engineers in his
report on public works and fortifications had proposed an alternative name for
Blakang Mati as the "Island of St George". However, the island was
seen as too unhealthy for habitation and his proposed name was never realised.

In a 1972 contest organised by the Singapore Tourist
Promotion Board, the island was renamed Sentosa, a Malay word meaning
"peace and tranquillity".

Through the 1980s and 1990s, a number of pay-to-get-in
tourist designations were built on the island, most of which the local people
found uninteresting. Consequently, there was a joke about the name Sentosa
stood for "So Expensive and Nothing TO See Also."

Planning to visit Sentosa in Singapore? You can book your hotel accommodations HERE